John C., Gary R., lists,
I haven't been following this thread closely, but I can offer a few
comments at this point. Peirce does call qualities abstract for reflection.
Peirce specifically states somewhere that the pragmatic maxim is not for
clarifying feeling-qualities per se but for clarifying conceptions,
ideas. Qualities of feeling lack meanings in the requisite sense. Peirce
insists on it. Yet this doesn't keep the conception of quality out of
Peirce's philosophy.
It does not stop a quality's occurrence in a given case, or its general
categorial role, from being conceived of and having meanings. In "What
Is a Sign" Peirce discusses a contemplation, dreamy and half-awake, of
quality without reaction or reflection.
[....] Except in a half-waking hour, nobody really is in a state of
feeling, pure and simple. But whenever we are awake, something is
present to the mind, and what is present, without reference to any
compulsion or reason, is feeling.
[End quote
http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/ep/ep2/ep2book/ch02/ep2ch2.htm> ]
In "The Logic of Mathematics: An Attempt to Develop My Categories from
Within," Peirce says that qualities _/are/_ generals - when _/reflected
on/_. By this logic, they are individuals when reacted with; at least
such an individual has a quality; and maybe Peirce thinks that a
feeling-quality taken as a general is really a general such as a symbol
incorporating or evoking a quality. Anyway, two pertinent passages
http://www.textlog.de/4282.html :
[....] That quality is dependent upon sense is the great error of
the conceptualists. That it is dependent upon the subject in which
it is realized is the great error of all the nominalistic schools. A
quality is a mere abstract potentiality; and the error of those
schools lies in holding that the potential, or possible, is nothing
but what the actual makes it to be. It is the error of maintaining
that the whole alone is something, and its components, however
essential to it, are nothing.
[End quote from CP 1.422]
[....] When we say that qualities are general, are partial
determinations, are mere potentialities, etc., all that is true of
qualities reflected upon; but these things do not belong to the
quality-element of experience.
[End quote from CP 1.425]
Best, Ben
On 4/27/2015 2:33 PM, John Collier wrote:
I am not denying 1ns. Never have. I claim it does not stand on its
own, and as a result cannot itself be foundational. It requires
further mental actions to pick out 1ns. It is not manifested in
itself. It is not “given”. It cannot be the foundation for an
epistemology.
You seem to still be misunderstanding my use of “abstraction”. I am
using it in the time honoured way initiated by Locke as partial
consideration. Berkeley missed this and thought of ideas as little
pictures, so we can’t have an idea of man because every man has
specific characteristics. Locke had already answered this. Yesterday I
saw a man in the bushes. I did not see his colour, the number of limbs
(though it was at least two) or a bunch of other things. I have no
problem saying this was a perceptual experience. But it must have
involved judgment. I know there must have been things that I
experienced that led to this, but I couldn’t well say what they were,
since that would bring them under generalities, which aren’t 1ns.
But I further maintain that 1ns is useless for thought, because
thought requires generalities. Perhaps that is what you don’t like.
John
*From: Gary Richmond
Sent: April 27, 2015 2:12 PM
To: Peirce-L
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:8485] Re: Natural Propositions,*
John,
You first wrote: "the experience of firstness. I maintained there is
no such thing in itself (except as an abstraction)."
But now you say that you agree with Frederik's analysis. But I do not
think that Frederik is saying that there is "so such thing in itself"
as an "experience of firstness," but that we must prescissively
abstract it out if we are to "focus" on in certain analyses.
Frederik has just written that he does not deny 1ns. You however seem
to to saying that it is merely "an abstraction," has its being as an
abstraction, has no other reality than that. Again, this does not
appear to me to be how Frederik sees it (he'll correct me, I'm sure,
if I'm wrong). All he seems to be saying is that for some analytical
purposes it is helpful to prescissively abstract 1ns from the other
two categories.
Best,
Gary
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*
On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 9:13 AM, John Collier <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
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